MENNA TAI HANIF PATEL Vs. AMITABH GUPTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner is the mother of detenu Sahil Hanif Patel, who has been detained under the Provisions of "Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlord, Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Dangerous Persons, Video Pirates, Sand Smugglers and persons engaged in Black-Marketing of Essential Commodities Act, 1981 " (hereinafter referred to M.P.D.A. Act) vide Order dtd. 22/4/2022. The Petitioner has challenged the said Order of detention by preferring this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The detenu was served with detention Order, committal Order, grounds of detention and the documents relied upon by detaining Authority while issuing the Order of detention.

(2.) Learned Advocate for the Petitioner submitted that, C.R. No. 247 of 2021 and C.R. No. 293 of 2021 were individualistic in nature having no connection with public at large and the said incidents does not affect the public Order. Witness A and witness B has referred to stale incidents occurred in the first week of December 2021 and second week of December 2021. The incidents referred by witnesses are not proximate. The statements are not genuine. The impugned Order of detention was issued on 22/4/2022 after a period of four months from the last incident. The affidavit-in-reply filed by the detaining Authority does not explain the delay in issuing Order of detention. Except transferring the file from one table to another, the Authority did not take effective steps for issuing Order of detention. Time gap spent in moving the file from one Authority to another Authority has not been explained. The delay in issuing detention Order has snapped the live link between activities and need for preventive detention. The detaining Authority has relied upon extraneous material to arrive at subjective satisfaction in as much as documents pertaining to past offences of detenu were placed before detaining Authority which has influenced his subjective satisfaction while issuing Order of detention.

(3.) Learned Advocate for the Petitioner has relied upon following decisions:-